


Presents and Promises, or The 7 Days of Cronemas

by greyathena



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8859931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: In which somehow, after the events of existing book canon and taking care of the Lady Stoneheart situation, Jaime and Brienne and Podrick (Ser Hyle . . . has gone somewhere) have found themselves looking for Sansa together . . . and have ended up passing through the Quiet Isle at precisely the wrong time.  Or the right one.
    Or, Westeros's least natural mom and dad try to play Santa the Crone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [openmouthwideeye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/gifts).



> A bit of silliness for the JB Secret Santa. Any resemblance to something that could actually happen in the books or show is fortuitous at best.

"Explain to me again exactly how we became stranded on an 'island' that can be reached by _walking_ to shore?" With his hands - well, hand, and a wrist - on his hips, Jaime looked remarkably like her old septa. "Or do you actually believe that only the saintly can cross the flats?"

"I believe it is a metaphor," Brienne replied patiently, though not entirely certain whether "metaphor" were the correct word. "But true in effect. I saw how complex a route Septon Meribald led us on our first visit here. I _believe_ only the brothers know how to traverse the flats without falling into the quicksand."

This was perhaps the fifth iteration of a conversation that had begun with the news, delivered by the Elder Brother, that the brothers' ferry had been burned by outlaws while it sat at mooring on the mainland. With a guide to lead them on the path of faith across the mudflats when the tide was out, this would have been a delay only and not an insurmountable problem, except -

"Then one of them will lead us, surely," Jaime said for at least the third time. She was beginning to think his definition of "surely" was actually "because no one resists Lannister gold."

Except when they did. Brienne had answered him the first two (at least) times, but it was Podrick who piped up this time. "But it's the Crone, ser. None of them will leave."

"You both keep saying that." Well, at least he'd been listening, even if not heeding. "The festival doesn't take all day. How long could it possibly take to lead us to shore and come back? The good brother would be eating wintercakes by the fire by the time the lanterns are lit."

"I think the celebration of a holy day just might be more involved in a cloister than it is at Casterly Rock," Brienne said.

After a second, Pod added, "She means they pray all day. Ser."

"A man can pray and walk at the same time."

"Speaking from experience?" Brienne asked.

Jaime smirked. "I pray constantly, I'll have you know."

"'Praying' and 'swearing' are two different things, Jaime."

"None of them will leave till the festival's over," Pod said. Thank the Seven for his stubborn sort of placid dimness that served as well as patience. It was a constant calming reminder that she didn't actually want to murder Jaime. "I asked. They said."

"They _said_?" Jaime made a show of narrowing his eyes. "The silent brothers? Was that a falsehood, young Payne?"

"They shook their heads," Pod clarified. "All of them."

"All?" Jaime asked.

"I asked everybody except the gravedigger and the one with a missing leg."

"You were very thorough," Brienne assured him. "We will simply have to wait until the Crone's Feast is over, and it will not kill any of us. Unlike drowning."

"Which would."

"Yes. Thank you for that clarification, Pod." 

"The festival is three days long," Jaime complained. "Surely you don't mean to -"

There was that word again. Also . . . "Seven," she said.

Jaime, who had begun to pace, stopped. "Seven?"

"Seven. Days. Most people only celebrate the last three, but . . ."

"No."

"It's a _sept_ , Jaime, what did you think. The festivals of the Seven are seven days long. The septons celebrate all seven days."

"Yes. They do it so we don't have to!"

"I'm sure that's true, when we aren't their guests."

"We don't have to do all the prayers with them," Podrick piped up. "I asked."

"How are you this calm?" Jaime asked. "This is your bloody oath we're still -"

"Our."

"You're the one who insisted we had to get to the Eyrie before the snows, which, I might add, have already started."

I am calm because it's been years already, she thought. I am calm because winter has always been coming. I am calm because the boy is dim, and otherwise I would have left him with a nice family by now. Like a kitten. "There's no point in fretting about something we can't change."

"In seven days they could have another ferry built!"

"Perhaps they will, and then we won't have to worry." She cast her eye at Pod. "Anyway, it won't hurt to have a few extra days of beds and real food and rest. When was the last time you celebrated the Crone's Feast, Pod?"

"We said the prayers last year. You made a lantern of a branch, remember?"

Brienne managed not to sigh. "Yes. I remember. I mean, when did you last celebrate it properly? With a proper turning log?"

He thought for a moment. "Not since I was small, my lady. I remember, though. The log. And we had gifts. Every night. I think."

"So you shall have one now. I'm not certain about gifts, but the brothers will have the turning log I'm sure. And cakes."

"And songs?" the boy asked hopefully.

"The reverent ones anyway, I'm sure they will." She gave Jaime the eye, willing him to stop complaining. There was nothing to be done anyway, and it would be nice for the child to have a real festival. After years of wandering and nearly being killed a dozen times. She was sure Jaime at his age had never known anything but bright and cozy family feasts with all the trimmings (if rather less of the praying, apparently).

Jaime had dropped into a chair with his chin in his hand. "Well, if you're willing to let Sansa Stark wait another sennight while we help the brothers deck their Isle in ribbons and baubles . . ."

"I'm sure the brothers don't go in for such frippery," Brienne said, still sending him what she hoped was a quelling look.

It failed. " _Frippery_?"

"Indeed."

"That's a ridiculous word, wench."

She ignored Podrick, who looked as if he wanted to correct Jaime for referring to her so disrespectfully. "I believe that is the entire point of the word, ser."

"Not even pine boughs, though?" burst forth from Podrick, who seemed to have forgotten Jaime's disrespect rather quickly.

He seemed so disappointed. "Perhaps they will have pine boughs," she said. "After all they grow on the hillside. And they are part of the actual symbolism of the day, unlike Ser Jaime's baubles."

Podrick almost giggled, and Jaime smirked again, at which point she deeply regretted the phrase "Ser Jaime's baubles." But upon seeing her expression, Podrick sobered and (thankfully cutting off whatever remark Jaime had probably been about to make) recited, " _Bright her lantern in the dark; Boughs of pine its chain she bears; Fiery log to kindle the spark; At the turning of the year._ I remember that. It doesn't rhyme right, though."

"It did once. Especially if you came from the Vale, where it was written." In a broad accent that sounded a bit like he had spiky thistles in his mouth, Jaime recited, " _At Crone's end, in midst the night; Bright the stars and chill the air; Till the Smith brings forth the light; At the turning of the year._ As you know in the Vale, like the North, year-end is cold even in summer."

"I'd like to have a turning log," Pod said. "As long as we can't leave anyway."

"I'm sure they'll lay it in the hall," Brienne said. "The hearth there is large enough for a log the size of a tree."

"But how will they sing?" Pod asked, his brow suddenly wrinkling. "I mean. If they're silent."

They all fell silent for a moment, pondering this entirely logical question. "Perhaps the proctors sing," Brienne guessed.

"Or there's a dispensation for holy days," Jaime said. "Do they pray silently, too?"

"Yes," Pod said. "The Elder Brother leads, or a proctor. Out loud. The others pray along silently. I -"

"You asked," Brienne and Jaime chorused.

She'd thought Jaime's funk at being stranded might last the entire festival, but when Pod had gone out to visit the horses, Jaime suddenly asked her, "Are there supposed to be gifts all seven nights?"

Confused both by the question itself and what possible reason he could have had for asking it, Brienne frowned. "I don't know. If only the godsworn celebrate all seven days . . . do you think they give each other gifts at all? Perhaps that's only part of the common festival."

"Or perhaps they have a Secret Crone," Jaime said. "And each only gives gifts to one other?"

That seemed awfully secular as well. Brienne's frown deepened. "I don't know. I suppose Podrick could ask. Likely he already has. Why do you want to know?"

He looked off to the side, suddenly a bit shifty. "I thought - the boy. You're right, a child ought to have a real festival."

She wondered, but didn't ask, whether he'd ever given Crone's gifts to his . . . to the children. 

"I don't know what we would give him," she said regretfully. "Last year there was no time to think of it, we barely had energy to say the prayers and light a . . . tree branch. But as we _are_ stranded here . . ."

"I used to carve," Jaime said thoughtfully. "Little things, you know. But." He waved his stump in the air. "Fighting's one thing, but if I tried to whittle with my left hand I'd be like to cut off something else."

"You could knight him," Brienne said, not entirely joking.

Jaime raised an eyebrow. "We'd certainly save that for the last night, as it would be hard to top. How old is he, anyway?"

She shrugged.

"I ought to knight you first." Like her, Jaime sounded almost serious. "The lad would likely see that as just as much a gift to him."

He probably would, bless him. In fact he'd probably refuse to be knighted unless she were, too. She'd have to remember to ask Jaime sometime, once they'd found Sansa Stark (or not) and determined where they were all to go next, to take Pod away and knight him. If she weren't present he might not insist.

"His scabbard is a bit sad," Jaime said with sudden inspiration.

Brienne brightened. "It is. I wonder do you think there might be a scrap pile, or . . ."

And just like that, they became conspirators.

On that first night, the turning log was indeed lit in the big hearth in the common hall (it wasn't quite the size of a large tree, but almost). There was no singing, but then again the biggest three nights of the festival, those actually celebrated by people outside of the cloister, hadn't even come yet. There _was_ music, as at meals; hymns to the Crone played on the harp without their words. And there were wintercakes and honey, and hot cider.

Stitching leather was no easy business, and Brienne's thumbs were rubbed raw but the new scabbard was still in progress. Instead, as they sat by the fire, Jaime presented both Podrick and Brienne with blood oranges stuck with cloves (and only looked mysterious when asked where he'd gotten them). They both wanted to share with Jaime, but he had one for himself, as well.

On the second night they arrived early enough for the rekindling of the log, with the Elder Brother intoning the traditional chant, "On this second night of seven nights, we mark the turning of the year with the spark from your lantern, O Crone, O oldmother; we beseech thee brighten our hearts and hearth with the light of Faith and teach us not to fear the darkness . . ."

Off to the side, Podrick happily sniffed a pine bough.

They presented him with the scabbard once the music had started. He let it sit on his outstretched hands for a while, staring in wonder and not daring to touch it, and reverently repeating, "Ser. My lady. _Ser_ ," until Jaime laughed at him and got them all cups of mead.

On the third night, the night seemed to press in closer, somehow. In the midst of Elder Brother's prayer Brienne suddenly thought _the night is dark and full of terrors_ and shuddered, seeing the rotting face of Lady Stoneheart in the shadows of the turning log. 

She didn't realize she'd said the words aloud until Jaime beside her murmured, "I'll take the Crone's lantern over their 'Lord of Light' any day, myself."

She nodded fervently.

That night - with the collusion of an unnamed silent brother, who'd slipped it to them on the first night with a smile and a nod at the boy - they presented Pod with one of the Isle's clever driftwood cups, except that this one had a hinged lid and a handle where it could be tied to his belt. He beamed and insisted on drinking his cider from it.

Brienne's dreams were dark that night, but she didn't remember them when she awoke. After breaking her fast, though, she went to the sept and sat in the back while Elder Brother chanted the morning cycle of the festival's prayers. She stayed until the sun had gone halfway across the north walls and the colored light from the stained glass fell on her back instead of in her face. Then she went to find Jaime and Pod for the noonday meal.

That night Jaime - having promised her that he had a plan - produced for all of them an array of tiny sweets in different shapes; sugar lions and candied berries somehow molded together in the shape of a tower, all manner of things. She was beginning to suspect he'd befriended the kitchen brother.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, while Pod was with the horses and they were huddled over a project in Brienne's cottage, Jaime asked if the Elder Brother knew her father.

"Why?" she asked.

"He _really_ wants you to go home."

"Oh." She stuck the needle she was using through the fabric in her lap to hold it, while she considered. "He just wants me not to die."

"Come to that, I agree with him." Jaime had also paused in his work, but he resumed it now. "Wouldn't it be good for the lad, though?"

"What?"

"Tarth." He bit off a thread and spat a bit of lint from his tongue. "He could train properly there as a squire, not slapdash in between fights for his life and sleeping on the ground. And peace and regular food might make him a bit less runty."

"Don't call him runty." Brienne frowned. "He's not my child, I'm not going to just take him off with me."

"He's as good as. He's your foster." She opened her mouth to object, but Jaime continued, "Who else has he got? You're in place of whatever lord he was supposed to be fostered with. And where else is he going to go?"

"He's a Lannister squire. He ought to stay with you."

"Wench, I have a feeling those distinctions are going to mean little and less as the winter goes on." He looked at her meaningfully, but she wasn't sure what that meaning was.

That evening, being the first of the last three which were celebrated with greater pomp even by the solemn brothers, there was a feast of crabs and eels and fish as well as wintercakes, and all of the proctors were released from silence at the same time to sing the Crone's songs. The others, except the Elder Brother, kept their vows but tapped their feet. The gift that Brienne and Jaime gave Podrick that night was technically his own bedroll, but they'd patched the holes and thin places and put a bit of a fancy border around the edge. Pod was in raptures.

Thank the Seven Jaime had somehow learned to sew and embroider. Well enough that he could even do it one-handed, and wrong-handed at that.

On the sixth night, more feasting and singing, this time with Pod happily joining in as he began to remember more of the songs from his abridged childhood. They gave him the gift they'd been working longest on, whenever they could get him to go somewhere else: a tunic of Jaime's, a proper Lannister one with sigil and all, altered down to approximately the boy's size. Despite his insistence that Podrick belonged with Brienne, it was Jaime's idea to honor him with the colors and sigil of the house he technically served.

Pod stroked the lion in awe while he drank his cider.

By the last night the boy's eyes glowed with happiness as he sat between Jaime and Brienne drinking watered mead, constantly looking from one to the other and smiling as the much-diminished turning log cast its flickering light on them all. The singing went on longest this night, but once it had ended and only the single harp kept up the tunes, Jaime said, "Well, Pod. What we have to give you tonight is a promise."

"A promise?" Pod repeated. He turned to look hopefully at Brienne. "My lady?"

She nodded. "A promise. That when our quest is completed - whether or not we ever find Tyrion . . ." She looked to Jaime a bit apologetically as she mentioned his missing brother.

But he only nodded and took up her thread. "Then, young Payne, you shall be knighted. I shall do it myself, or if I am dead your lady will make sure someone else does."

Podrick sat up very straight, but looked between them urgently. "But ser! My lady! I mean - I cannot be knighted before my lady. I'm her squire. It wouldn't be right."

"Neither is you being squire to someone who is no knight in the first place," Brienne said. "Nor would anyone hold with Ser Jaime knighting me, even if he wanted to."

"I never said I didn't," Jaime said. To Podrick he added, "I have said nothing of what may happen in the meantime. Only that I will knight you, _you_ in particular, this Podrick Payne, at the end of this quest. I may knight fifty people before then. It makes no matter."

Glowing, Podrick sipped his mead.

Jaime caught Brienne by the arm as she was about to go off to her cottage that night. Podrick was already heading happily and sleepily for the cloister, in the company of two silent brothers. "We will be on our way tomorrow, most like," Jaime said.

Brienne nodded.

Jaime looked around at the quiet dark, the common hall windows barely illuminated by dwindling lanterns and the last coals of the turning log. "I will be sorry," he said.

Brienne blinked a bit at that, but he _had_ entered into the spirit of the thing, once he fully realized there was no getting off the island until the festival was over.

"I have something for you," he said.

"Oh?"

He stepped closer in the dark, rubbing his mouth with his hand. "A promise for you, too. Though - I'm not exactly sure what it is, yet."

"You're giving me a promise of - something you don't know?" She shrugged a bit. "All right. Thank you?"

"I haven't given it yet."

She frowned in confusion, but he came closer again and cupped her cheek - the good one, but then of course it was the easiest reached with his only hand. He was tilting her head down, which she allowed, but she was still surprised when he kissed her.

It was a brief kiss, but - good. Gentle.

"Now I have," he said, dropping his hand to her shoulder and squeezing it. "Goodnight."

She wanted to have a sensible thought on the matter, as she watched him make his way to the cloister in the dark, but all she could really think was, _Huh_.

**Author's Note:**

> I invented a holiday. We know the Seven each have one, and in trying to decide which would come closest to a Christmas/Yule/solstice type festival, I landed on the Crone with her lantern. Also it seemed reasonable that the secular picture of the Crone could be of an old fairy godmother type giving gifts to children. Plus, the old year dies and the young is born . . . etc etc etc. 
> 
> I have never written in this fandom before so this was fun! Hope you enjoyed!


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